Better than 10% of women can not identify right from left. Better than 10% of men don't have a clue. Look it up,you non believers, I don't make this stuff up. You first learn this little factoid when you start teaching your daughter to drive, with your wife in the car. Go that way is left, go this way is right. That is daughter driving lesson 101. Son driving lesson 101 is SLOW DOWN delivered at 120 decibels.

Left and right is still a problem, yet when I knew where I was in relationshipt to the ocean (south) or Denali (north), I knew north and south.

I have to still use west coast, east coast to think about right or left, and of course finding the direction of an electric current requires me to stand on my head.

Levorotatory and dextrorotorary, I have to trust crystallographers are correct about that.

When I was a kid, since I finished the time-test for fractions first, I got to call 3-minutes while teacher went for a quick bathroom break. After the first minute, the clock hands started going another way. I had to physically keep my eye on the hand and use my head motion to keep track of time. I don't think the teacher ever found out that sometimes time-test was up in 3 minutes or 4 minutes.

Us disorganized people prefer to live out in the middle of everything!

When I was learning to drive, my mom and I had to agree that she would say "correct" instead of "right" when she was agreeing with the direction I wanted to go. We would frequently have the following exchange:

Me: So I turn left here?Mom: Right.Me: *makes a right turn*Mom: What are you doing? You asked if you needed to go left, and I said right...oh.

Nights are a killer and I bet he isn't on straight nights. Everyone is human and makes errors occasionally.

As for women learning left and right, in my family it is difficult for all of the boys because of dyslexia. I am female and driving was the point at which I learned. Up to that point I had to mentally pick up a fork to know l/r. The entire "L" with your hand never made sense to me. I can't tell when way is correct if it isn't in context.

In college I worked at a veterinary clinic. A dog had been admitted the night before after being hit by a car. His right rear leg suffered multiple fractures and the decision was made to amputate. I prepared the dog and limb (a lengthy process) and then went to chart what I had done while the Dr. started the surgery. I panicked when I read the Dr's notes that the LEFT leg was injured. My initial reaction was that I had somehow prepped the wrong leg and I had to stop the surgery immediately! Fortunately as quickly as that thought went through my brain the rational observer reminded me of what I had seen and felt. Instead I just chided the good Dr. for giving me such a panic.

When I was learning right and left as a kid, I would move both hands at the same time to see which one moved faster, and I'd know that the fast hand was the right since I was right-handed. As an adult, I still find myself twitching my hands when someone asks a right-or-left question.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

Singing Foo!

Have Dr. Grumpy delivered automatically to your Kindle for only 99 cents a month! Sign up here!

Dr. Grumpy is for hire! Need an article written (humorous, medical, or otherwise) or want to commission a genuine Grumpy piece for your newspaper/magazine/toilet paper roll? Contact me to discuss subjects. You can reach me at the email address below, or through my Linked-In profile.

Note: I do not answer medical questions. If you are having a medical issue, see your own doctor. For all you know I'm really a Mongolian yak herder and have no medical training at all except in issues regarding the care and feeding of Mongolian yaks.